


The Scripturient

by ab2fsycho



Series: The Candle Cult [10]
Category: The Candle Cult
Genre: Other, a backstory, how they joined, platonic friendshipping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-14
Updated: 2015-12-14
Packaged: 2018-05-06 17:17:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5425313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ab2fsycho/pseuds/ab2fsycho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dextra and Sinistro move to a strange town: Eventide, Washington. With a friendship that extends back to their childhood, they find themselves in a town already occupied with beings stranger than themselves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Scripturient

She hadn’t had many friends to begin with, but the couple she did have she knew she would never speak to again upon leaving America. London wasn’t so bad. In fact, it definitely suited her more with the almost pleasant busyness and rich history. She loved history, and the histories recorded in London were greater and grander than those in America. Well . . . to her that was the case. To her that was the one comfort.

Dextra clutched her stuffed raven Thomas to her chest at night. Her new room was still bare, moving taking much longer than she liked. She wanted it over with. She wanted to settle as quickly as possible. Before she knew it, homesickness settled in her chest and she was crying. She missed home. She missed St. Augustine. It wasn’t as rich as London. No, it wasn’t as old and full of stories. Stories she would love to tell and retell to anyone who would listen. Only, there was no one there to listen. Her parents had heard them all, taken part in her learning of them all, and her friends were an ocean away.

Sitting up in bed, she squeezed Thomas tight to her chest and sniffled. Blanket around her shoulder, she pretended it was her parents’ arms around her. She was old enough now they didn’t fear leaving her alone at night when they had to work, but she really wished they were here. She really wished she wasn’t alone.

A sound echoed from downstairs and she froze. Hold tightening on Thomas, she curled in on herself as she listened to the cries. Eyes wide, she recognized the voice.

It was her own.

But it didn’t cease when she ceased, and therefore it wasn’t fully her own.

Slipping off her bed quietly, she carried Thomas in the crook of her arm as she let the blanket drop to the floor. Reaching under her bed for her walking stick (the one she’d gotten from one of the forts in St. Augustine), she stepped lightly out of her room and down the stairs.

Dextra slipped slowly over carpeted floor, finding herself in the foyer of her new home as she followed the voice. When she stepped onto the creaky wood of the foyer, the voice fell silent. Chills ran up her back as she went still to see if it would resume. Was it a ghost? Maybe it was a banshee. No, that couldn’t be right. Banshees were in Ireland, not England. She tried to think with some clarity. Be more realistic. Her dad always said those things didn’t exist, therefore it had to be an intruder. But who breaks into a house to cry?

Her silence apparently cued the voice to resume. Her head turned swiftly toward the source, and discovered to her dismay it was coming from the locked basement door.

Wait . . . .

The door . . . .

The door to the basement, the door the previous owners had left them no key to, the door that no one had been able to force open since arrival, was open.

And the sound was coming from down there.

All possibility of this not being a supernatural phenomenon went out the metaphorical window in Dextra’s mind and she held Thomas tighter. Gripping the stick tight in her fist, she proceeded carefully and quietly to the open door. Descending into the dark basement, she swallowed hard as she was met with no light source.

And the crying grew steadily louder.

Her eyes widened to take in as much light as possible in the room, but ultimately . . . it was just an empty basement. There was a tiny window at the top that let in some of the moonlight. Coming to stand in the center of the light that pooled in, the crying had stopped as soon as her feet had come in contact with the cold, stone floor. Glancing around again, she used the little streams of light to look around. It truly was empty down there. Two empty shelves against the wall, a table under the window, and an overturned chair made up the small basement.

“Hello?” she asked tentatively, but was greeted by silence. She squeezed Thomas tighter and lowered her stick. Rubbing at her red eyes, she headed to the wall and fumbled for switches. Buttons. Anything. Was there any light down here?

Dextra’s hand grazed over the wall as she tried to find something to turn on, some bit of light. Then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw something scurry through the light. Squeaking and dropping the stick, she wrapped both arms around Thomas and pressed her back against the wall. Heart hammering and gasping, her eyes darted about the room again for the . . . thing.

She about jumped out of her skin when something mimicked her squeak from just a few seconds before. The sound filled the room, so she couldn’t pinpoint its origin.

Sliding down to a crouching position, she brought her knees up to her chest and dipped her chin below Thomas’s head. “This isn’t funny,” she responded fretfully.

“Funny,” the thing echoed back to her.

Now she was just angry. “Stop it!” she begged, covering her face with Thomas. “Please just . . . stop.” She buried her face against her raven, Thomas still wet from her tears from earlier. She added to those tears now. She was far from home. So far from home, and she already had a bully. A bully living inside her own house.

She just wanted to go back home.

Sniffling, she didn’t look up at the next shift of light. She just curled tighter, making herself as small as possible. She didn’t move at all otherwise. Maybe if she just went quiet it would go away and stop making fun of her. She expected to hear another mockery of her voice at any moment.

Instead, something pointy touched her kneecap and scraped down her shin.

Dextra squeaked again and looked up with frightened eyes, shaking at having been touched. She went completely still at the sight of the creature before her, for it was most definitely a creature and not just a spirit.

It was only slightly bigger than her. Its eyes were large, round, and glowing a pale yellow. When it blinked, its entire visage nearly disappeared in the darkness. If it hadn’t just touched her, she would have thought it to be pure shadow.

It tilted its head as it stared at her, pointed ears twice the length of its own head perking up slightly as it looked at her. Something flicked from side to side behind it and . . . tail. It had a long tail easily the length of its body. And hind legs like a dog’s. Dextra glimpsed at its hands, which it was leaning on before her. They . . . looked like normal hands. Except one had a really long claw. That had to be what had scraped her.

Glancing back at its face, she watched it blink at her. When it didn’t do anything aside from look at her and tilt its head in a curious manner, she relaxed further and stared back. She managed not to flinch again when it repeated, in her voice, the word, “Hello.”

Wiping at her eyes, she sniffed one more time and asked, “Can you talk?” It nodded, and she asked, “Are you going to hurt me?” It shook its head. When she smiled, it smiled back. Its grin was sharp and white against a pitch black face.

And strangely adorable.

\--

“Welcome home, I guess,” Dexy uttered, setting the first box down gently.

The box’s top, which had holes poked in it, burst open as a cat sized Sinny popped his head out. Packaging peanuts (which had most certainly not been her idea) flew up and hit her as he declared in a voice matching Jude Law’s, “Do you know how terrible a driver you are?”

She grimaced. “Is that what the peanuts were about?”

“I thought they’d soften the bumps, but no. Absolutely not.” He spit one out at her. “They just rubbed me wrong.” He puffed up slightly, and she could almost hear the static on his short hairs.

“I told you to ride up front with me for a reason.” The drive to Eventide had been difficult without a partner to speak to. “But no, you chose to be packaged. And with a bow, no less.” She pulled said bow off the box and slapped it onto his oversized ear.

He glared up at her. “Bright lights and boggarts don’t mix.”

True. And she had been driving during the day mostly. But alas, “You’re not a boggart.”

“I beg to differ.” He started to climb out, spilling more packaging peanuts on the floor of their new apartment. “Besides, I think I am a wonderful housewarming present.”

She shook her head and snorted. “You’re a mess, is what you are. Now help me bring in the goods.”

He did a perfect imitation of an Igor grousing, “Yes master.”

\--

The basement downstairs got converted to a playroom once her parents saw that she was spending more and more time downstairs than before. Eventually, she just decided she’d rather have her bedroom be down there than upstairs. “What if children make fun of you for living in the basement under the stairs?”

“They’ll call you Harry Potter.”

Dextra saw no issue there. Besides, she much preferred the company of her secret friend to the kids at school. They tended to be aloof towards her. Perhaps it was because she was born American. Perhaps it was because she read more books than spoke to people. It didn’t matter to her. Someone else could hear her stories.

“The doctor cut off Osceola’s head and put it in a jar, and when his daughters were bad he locked them in their room with it.”

The boggart’s eyes were always wide with interest when she told ghost stories of her old home. “But why did he want the head?” he asked in her voice.

She shrugged. “I guess he was crazy.” She held up her hands as she continued the story. “But at night Osceola walks the fortress walls of Castillo de San Marco, and sometimes you can see his face on one of the walls facing the bay.”

“Did you see him?”

Dextra frowned. “No. I wish.”

He sat back on his haunches, pinning his ears. “But,” he pondered, “what if the doctor wasn’t crazy?”

“What do you mean?”

“What if he wanted to experiment on the brain of Osceola? What if he wanted to learn the secrets of the Seminoles by picking him apart?” She hadn’t thought it possible, but his eyes got wider as he bounced and his tail flicked. “What if he was building his own creation?”

Dextra leaned in closer, whispering like they had discovered a grand secret. “Like Dr. Frankenstein?”

“Yeah!”

“Would he do that? Was the book even out by then?”

His gaze narrowed and he looked down. “I’m not actually sure?”

“If Frankenstein wasn’t out, then how could he know to piece bodies together to make a monster?”

“No, the creation was never a monster. He was just a creation.” The boggart then pointed out, “What if Mary Shelley got the idea from that doctor?”

“But that’s impossible,” Dextra scoffed.

“Not if she was friends with a certain other Doctor.”

She perked up at the boggart’s suggestion. “The Doctor?” she asked excitedly to clarify.

“Yes!” He leapt in excitement.

Their storytelling began straying from realistic to fantastical in this manner until one day, they were no longer content with the stories history provided them. They continued until their stories became more interesting than the stories learned from books.

They continued until they were writing their own stories.

\--

“Alphabetical.”

“Year.”

“Alphabetical makes more sense.”

“Alphabetical is lazy.”

“It’s easier!”

“Year is more interesting.”

She grabbed a handful of movies and shoved them onto the shelf. He looked down at her with the most mortified expression. “No order!” she declared.

“You monster!” he declared in Glados’s voice from the game Portal. Then he mimicked Taylor Swift and said, “Now go stand in the corner and think of what you did.” She huffed and went to organizing the book shelves across the room from them. Ordering them by author they had at least agreed upon.

Clothing, beds, and other essentials had been easy to organize in comparison to their vast media collection. They had at least had an easy time putting up their posters and setting up their consoles. The same could not be said about the DVDs, VHSs, and Blu-ray. “You better be alphabetizing.”

Sinny let out a growl before resuming his typical Jude Law voice. “You said no order, so I’m doing it my way.”

She let out a noise of disgust. “How do you expect me to remember the year each one of those came out?”

“Keep complaining and I will make that whole trunk,” he pointed to said trunk, which held all of her old and completed journals of stories kept from the very first they had written together, “disappear.”

“You always say that, but you’re never gonna do it, are you?”

“Reorder these movies and try me,” he warned.

She did. And the trunk wound up under the bed in his sleeping space where she had to argue with him to get to it.

\--

“You need a new voice,” she declared as she popped the VHS into the player.

“But I like this voice,” he bickered.

“But you sound like me and it’s a little weird.”

His eyes narrowed. When he opened his mouth, he sounded exactly like her father, “Now young lady—”

“Oh my God, no!” she shouted, covering his face with both hands. He was growing so much bigger than her. And faster. It was strange, having to stand on the tips of her toes to smack her hands over his mouth and shut him up. “We’re going to find you a suitable voice, and it’s not going to be from anyone in this house.”

“Technically,” he argued, returning to her voice, “these movies are in this house. Therefore—”

“Don’t argue! Just, watch and listen, okay?”

Every night for the rest of her life, because of their hunger for stories and voices, she would wake up to a different actor’s tone. She groaned each time, responding to the boggart’s daily reminder that it had been her idea to get him to try new voices. She had been woken up by Severus Snape, Stitch, Jiminy Cricket, Spy Fox, Pajama Sam, San, Captain Morgan, Ludo, and so, so many more. The one time she had actually gotten fed up, it had been over Samwise’s tirade about potatoes. She’d fallen off the bed trying to smother her companion with a pillow.

\--

“I am a boggart!” he felt the need to remind her as she sat at her desk scratching away her latest story idea. She whispered hopefully to herself that by writing about the past, then she wouldn’t predict the future. So far, this had been a fairly sound tactic.

All the while, she threw chunks of baked goods into his mouth. It was like having a nine foot tall dog and throwing treats to him. “Sure you are.”

This was an old argument. What had started it? The declaration that by eating brownies he was committing an act of cannibalism. “I am terrifying! I sit on the chests of those I hate and scratch their faces! I hide their things! I drink their milkshakes!”

She picked up a brownie. “You burn pleasantly at the edges and stay gooey in the center.”

He waved his hands and screamed in Bill Cipher, “I am a being of pure energy with no weaknesses!”

“One of these days,” she spun her chair to face him, “you will admit that you are a brownie. And not a boggart.”

“One of these days, you will show me the respect I am due!”

She grinned, then tossed him another brownie. He caught it and swallowed it down in one gulp. “For now, admit that you enjoy the blood of your siblings.”

She laughed, glasses knocked off as Sinny launched a pillow at her in an act of vengeance.

\--

“Where is Thomas!” she shouted, throwing her things aside in a mad search for the stuffed rave. When she received no answer and when she couldn’t find him, she collapsed on the ground and burst into tears. Holding her legs in place of the raven, she sobbed. She couldn’t stand herself right then. She just . . . she couldn’t.

The scrape of a claw across her arm only got her attention so much. She looked up, and much to her relief and dismay the boggart was holding Thomas out to her. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, voice small and eyes sad. “I took him.”

She ripped the raven from his grasp, whimpering, “Why would you take him?”

He shrank back, ears and tail drooping in shame as he clasped his hands together. “Every time you cry, you hold him. I thought if you didn’t have him, you wouldn’t cry.”

She wiped at her eyes, looking up at the boggart. She could understand. At the same time, she was still hurt. “Next time, just ask me why I’m crying,” she corrected.

It was always so difficult to remember that he wasn’t human. That he didn’t necessarily know what being polite entailed. Glancing around nervously, he asked, “Why are you?”

She hesitated, not having been prepared for him to actually ask. Granted, she should have. “My parents keep saying you’re imaginary. But you’re not. You can’t be.”

He looked so upset at being called imaginary she instantly regretted it. He looked down, as if seriously considering the state of his own existence. “But, what if—?”

“No,” she declared, dropping Thomas to grab his arm. “No what ifs.” He always asked what if without fail. It was how most of her stories got written, was him asking what if. But not this time. She didn’t want him to say what if this time. “You are real.” She loosened her grip on his black, fur covered arm, satisfied in the physical confirmation he was there with her. “You have to be.”

“But,” he murmured, “before you, I was alone. Who’s to say you didn’t bring me into existence?” Her eyes went wide at the suggestion. “You make stories so easily. And they’re tangible. What if—?”

“Even if I did make you,” which she didn’t, “you are real. That just proves you are real.” She was desperate for him to agree that he was real. He couldn’t not be real. If he wasn’t real . . . .

She had been alone this whole time.

She’d never seen him so sad. “But I don’t even have a name.”

The realization that he didn’t hit her hard. In the three years she’d lived there, from the time she was ten until now when she was just turning thirteen, she had never once called him anything other than the boggart. She’d thought . . . she had . . . she shook her head. There was only one way to fix this. They had to fix this. “What do you want it to be?”

He glanced up, eyes searching her face. Blinking as he had done upon first meeting her, he asked, “Can’t you just name me?”

“It wouldn’t be the same,” she declared. She wiped at the tears again, this time crying in frustration. “You choose your name.”

“That’s not how it normally—”

“I’m not normal.” She knew that. Her parents knew that, though they constantly reassured her that wasn’t a bad thing. Until they told her maybe it was time for her to grow out of her ‘imaginary’ friend. “So,” she continued to reason, “why should we do anything normally?”

Still he looked down, pondering. After a long round of silence passed between them, he asked, “What does Dextra mean?”

Her brow furrowed. From what she remembered, it was Latin for, “Right.”

He thought for a while longer. “Then I will be Left.” She curled against him, holding him in place of the stuffed raven. He was stiff at first, likely confused by the hold. Soon though, he was returning it in kind. “You don’t want me to leave?” he asked quietly against her shoulder.

She shook her head. “Never.”

She smiled when she felt her friend smile. “Then I never will.”

From that day forward, he was Sinistro. The left to her right.

\--

Dexy flopped down on her bed, not even bothering to undress after work. In a way, she was glad rent in Eventide seemed to be cheaper than anywhere else. Still, that didn’t mean she wasn’t bone tired from working all day in the vet’s office.

Sinny’s tail slid up from under the bed to coil around her forearm. “You smell like dog vomit. You should shower.”

“Hi Sinny,” she grumbled, hat falling off her head and onto her pillow as she lay with her glasses askew. His tail uncoiled from around her arm and he emerged from his hiding space under her bed. She knew he was waiting to hear about her day. She, however, was not very happy about it. “You remember the short I wrote about the kitten following a wisp into the woods?” Sinny hummed in remembrance. “I think I accidentally predicted the loss of someone’s pet.”

Sinny tossed all typical behavior aside and crawled into bed behind her. Rolling into his offered embrace, she accepted the comfort. “Just remember, it’s not your fault.”

“I know.” Even if she stopped writing, it would still happen. She had to tell herself that. Glancing up at him through tired eyes, she asked, “What did you do today?”

“Stole the last sip of the neighbor’s milk. Maybe licked the crumbs on his plate.”

She shook her head. “Don’t get caught, idiot.”

He stuck his long, black tongue out at her and she snorted. “He didn’t even know I was there.”

“You say that, but then—”

“It’s not like I left his television on at three in the morning just to unnerve him.”

“Sinny,” she bit out.

“He thinks it’s some forest spirit. They’re apparently common in this town.”

She sighed. The vet’s office was overflowing with rumors of creatures gathering in the forest. As much as she would like to see if it’s true, the scarier tales kept her from exploring. Besides she wouldn’t want to explore without Sinny, so she’d have to wait for nightfall anyway. Looking him over, she asked, “Are you getting smaller?” His size tended to vary, but he looked shorter than normal.

He countered her question with one of his own. “Are you getting smellier?” She shrieked as he shoved her out of the bed. Sinny laughed.

\--

“I’m scared, Sinny,” she whispered as she lay in bed.

The boggart lie under her bed, shuffling about before asking, “What of?”

She pursed her lips. It was hard, coming clean with her concerns. Even to her friend, a magical being guaranteed not to scoff at any of them. Then again, he was capable of ridicule. That had become more and more evident as they had watched movies together. He was a heavy critic on all aspects of storytelling. What would he say if she told him her concern?

Dextra felt something slide up onto her mattress and opened her eyes. She let loose a small smile as she saw that it was Sinistro’s tail reaching for her arm. Letting her arm slide closer to it, Sinistro located her wrist and curled to end of his tail around it. Tip resting in her palm, she squeezed it lightly in gratitude.

With that, she felt reassured enough to open up. “I think . . . I’m an oracle of some sort.”

The was a long pause that made her stomach flip-flop. Then came the inevitable question, “Why?”

She sighed. They had been writing stories for a long time. Stories that had no effect on anyone other than themselves. Stories they never shared. But she had started sharing stories with teachers, now. They loved her writing. They thought she had a gift, and it made a few of her peers somewhat jealous of the praise she received. That wasn’t what scared her, however. “I think my writing . . . comes true. In a . . . weird way.”

She heard Sinistro shift, felt it in the way his tail swayed around and in her hand. “How so?”

She bit her tongue. How could she explain? “R-remember the one . . .,” which had first become obvious to her? “Remember the girl who lost her family in a fire, and all she had left was a burnt keychain?” The boggart made a noncommittal noise, saying he recognized the story. “I . . . I upset . . . one of my teachers.”

“Did she think it was too sad?”

Dextra shook her head as if he could see her. “No, she . . .,” she recalled how her teacher had pulled out a key ring, then laid it on the desk for Dextra to see. “She . . .,” the partially horrified look on her teacher’s face. “She had the exact keychain.” And Dextra had darted from the room with her story faster than if the teacher had outright rejected her writing.

Sinistro hummed. “That doesn’t sound like prediction. That sounds like mindreading.” He shifted again. “Had you seen her keychain before?”

“No. Maybe. I don’t . . .,” she sighed. “I hadn’t. But that’s not all.” She thought of the next event, trying to form the right words. “I wrote that one poem,” she so rarely wrote poems and shared, “about a boy who liked . . . boys.” All of his feelings and fears of telling his crush how he felt. Of how it could destroy his reputation, and how he would be destroyed if he kept it in without trying. “Someone I knew came out just as I had written it. Came out to his best friend.” His best friend had rejected him. The boy had been so embarrassed he had left school distraught. “He dropped out.” No one had heard from him. She was . . . she was afraid for him.

“Maybe your intuition is just really good? I doubt your writing directly influenced these events.”

He might be right. But at the same time . . ., “The story of flood. I wrote that, and two days later the downstairs halls of the school were soaked.”

Sinistro was quiet. “Are you afraid that by writing you’re making things happen?” She nodded again, quietly voicing her affirmation. “Dextra, even if you were, would you stop writing?”

She thought about it. “I . . .,” the very thought was crippling. “I don’t . . .,” tears sprang to her eyes in frustration, “think I could. I couldn’t.”

His tail squeezed around her wrist. “You don’t have to. You just,” he stopped. Then he sighed. “I don’t think you have control of these events. I think you’re just . . . a conduit.”

“But what if I am?” What if she was inadvertently ruining lives? What if she actually needed to stop writing before she hurt someone even more?

His tail squeezed tighter and they went quiet, indicating he had no answer. She had no answer either. They were just . . . stuck for the time being.

\--

She sat with her hands clasped, mouth pressed to the cool flesh of her hands as she thought. Her story was twisting in a new direction. The two friends were happy, as she had wanted them to be. Something was wrong, though. Something was . . . off. One seemed almost sick.

Sinny climbed up onto her back to perch between her shoulder blades. He was in his smaller form for once, and he stared down at what she’d written. He pointed to the second character’s name and declared, “She’s changed quite a bit from last I remember.”

Dexy nodded. “She has.” It was almost disturbing how swiftly a character could change. Like people, almost. But to think of characters as anything less than people felt wrong and blasphemous to her, so she simply did not question it. Dropping her pencil, she pulled Sinny over her shoulder and cradled him like a cat. “What are you being so affectionate for?”

He shrugged, bright eyes half-lidded like he was tired. “I ate all of the neighbor’s cookies and milk.”

She narrowed her eyes. “What, does he think Santa is coming early or something silly like that?”

Sinny snorted as his tail curled around her forearm. “I don’t know, but it’s hilarious seeing his face when he realizes all of what he set out is gone.”

Dexy wanted to laugh, but a sickness settled in the pit of her stomach instead. “Do me a favor and . . . stop taking his food. Okay?”

He took on the voice of some actress she couldn’t recall the name of right then. “Whatever Mom!” She retaliated by giving him a noogie.

\--

She finished her primary schooling and went to university from home. It was in university she met her first serious boyfriend.

“I like them.”

“Really?”

He grinned up at her surprised yet ecstatic expression, holding her across his lap as he leaned up to peck her lips. She bit her bottom lip, grinning happily as he asked, “Are all these notebooks full of writing?”

Dextra looked at the growing stack of notebooks that started on the floor and extended up past her desk’s surface. She really needed to give them a better, safer space. “Yes.” She’d kept every drabble since she and Sinistro had started.

“Dear Lord girl, get a life!” She lightly hit his arm, then proceeded to kiss him harder. One arm supporting her torso while the other ran up and down her thigh and hip, the kiss deepened and her own arms curled tighter around his neck. He groaned, pulling back just enough to whisper, “You’re pretty.”

She grinned wider. “So are you.”

He snickered quietly, uttering, “I love you.”

“Love you t—,” she was interrupted by the sound of metal striking the cold basement floor. Both jumped and she felt a spark of annoyance as she got up to pick up the alarm clock that had ‘mysteriously’ fallen off the dresser. Placing it back on the piece of furniture, she brushed off the incident as, “I bet there’s a rat in here.”

“That’s a wee bit concerning, don’t you thi—is that really the time?”

She watched his eyes widen and looked back at the clock. Well, it seemed to be working properly. “I assume so—”

“Christ, I’m late!” He darted from the chair and up the stairs without another word. She heard the door slam upstairs as he rushed not to miss his class.

Then she turned and glared at the space under her bed. “Sinistro Liddell,” she snarled out the boggart’s given name.

The boggart emerged slowly from under the bed, standing at his full height. He’d stopped growing at nine feet, glowing eyes glaring down at her with ears pinned and tail twitching. “I don’t like him.”

“Well I do.”

“You should be thanking me, keeping him from missing his class.”

“You mean keeping him off me.”

“No one wants to hear that mess!” he argued.

Dextra growled and flopped down in the chair her boyfriend had been sitting it. “This is why I don’t date.”

“It’s simple, really,” Sinistro lowered himself to the ground and edged towards her on all fours. “If you want to snog, do it at his place. Not yours.” He plopped his head down on the edge of her writing desk.

“He has roommates,” she argued, closing her notebook on her latest story.

“What am I? Chopped liver?”

“You will be if you keep bloody cockblocking me!”

Sinistro gasped. “So you were going for it!”

Her face reddened. “No!”

“With me in the room? Dextra!”

“No, I wasn’t I just—”

“You wanted to touch it. Don’t lie.” His voice was edging closer and closer to David Tennant and her face was growing redder and redder. “You like it.”

“Oh my God!” She shoved his head off the desk. “Stop!”

“You sinner!” He pulled her from the chair and onto the floor with him.

“What do you know about sin?” she asked.

“Can’t spell Sinistro without Sin.” He then gave her the cheesiest hooded gaze coupled with a sly grin.

And she burst out laughing. Rolling on the floor, they laughed at his terrible pun and annoying mission to embarrass her. By the time she was somewhat coherent, she was gasping out, “Don’t ever say that again.”

He responded breathlessly. “I’m going to.”

“You better not,” she declared, landing a punch to his chest as the lie beside the writing desk, still red in the face and laughing at themselves.

“I will.”

“Don’t you dare.”

He snorted. “I dare.”

\--

She was thinking about where to take her story next, as well as when she was going to have time to do the laundry. At least Sinny was good at keeping dishes and the house clean. Having a space to roam freely without fear of interruption seemed to have done him some good.

As she finished up work and was headed home to their apartment, she reminded herself she needed to call her parents for her weekly update. Let them know she was doing alright, going to work and not sleeping in too late. They tended to worry if she didn’t call them by Saturday. Sometimes she missed their California home, but Eventide just . . . seemed like the right place to be for her. For her and Sinny.

Opening the door to her apartment, she stepped in and turned on the lights without looking up. “I’m home,” she called out.

Everything inside her stopped when she was met with a cry.

Her cry.

The cry of her child self.

Dexy dropped everything and rushed to the sound. She found him in the kitchen, in his house cat sized form. He was lying on the tile and shaking, eyes squeezed shut and small whimpers escaping his mouth.

Blood was spilling from his mouth in steady dribbles as he murmured, “I fucked up,” in a voice so small she almost didn’t hear him.

She couldn’t help it. She screamed.

\--

She waited for his review of her latest piece of writing. He closed the notebook, then squinted up at her. “I don’t know why you think this story is of a poorer quality than the others. Why is my approval so important?”

Dextra took the notebook from him. “Because it’s about two friends being separated.” Clutching it to her chest, she stared at the floor and avoided his eyes. “And . . . the breakup was bad.”

She could actually hear Sinistro tilting his head. “You can’t think that will happen to us, can you?” Her throat clenched and tears sprang to her eyes. She removed her glasses to keep them from fogging up, setting them aside as she continued to clutch the notebook. “Dextra,” he murmured, shifting closer to her. “What’s wrong?” She didn’t answer. The silence dragged between them as she fought to keep her tears from falling. His voice grew softer, “What aren’t you telling me?”

Her shoulders slumped. “After I finish uni,” she sniffled, “we’re moving back to America.” To California, to be exact. Her father’s business called for it. He had managed to stave off the need to move until after her graduation. She hadn’t yet told the small circle of friends she had made at uni, and she was dreading telling her boyfriend of three years. But none of their potential losses hurt as much as the idea that she would never see Sinistro again. She still hadn’t looked back up at him. She didn’t know what he looked like, receiving this news. All she knew was how she felt. “I’m . . . I wanted . . .,” oh no she was breaking before she could finish.

She heard the agony in Sinistro’s voice as she crouched to the ground wrapped around the notebook, trying to keep herself together. “Are you a-asking me to . . . to leave?” She shook her head. “But . . . you’re leaving me.” Did he have to sound so destroyed? So damn . . . lost?

Dextra jumped on the fear that his thoughts would sink in before she got the chance to ask. “I want you to come with me.” She rubbed her forearm across her eyes. “I want you to stay with me always, but I don’t know if you have to stay here, or if you can’t go, or if you don’t want to go. I just want you to go with me so I don’t leave behind everything again. I don’t want—”

“Your story to come true,” he finished for her. Her chest clenched and she nodded. Her shoulders shook from the force required to keep from breaking down any further.

Sinistro shuffled away and she was convinced he was leaving. Settling on her knees, she dropped the notebook and nearly lost her composure.

Until a stuffed raven came into her view.

She looked up at the boggart, who was crouched before her and offering her Thomas. She knew he wanted to comfort her, but . . . was this also . . . what did he mean? “Sinny?” she asked, brow pinched.

He responded with a question while still holding out Thomas. “Your left?”

Dextra was still. Still and staring. Then she launched forward and wrapped her arms around both Sinistro and Thomas. “Your right,” she confirmed against the tufts of fur she buried her face in.

He held her back, the quiet reminder that they had promised never to leave each other lingering in the air.

\--

“That is not a house cat,” he employer declared, giving her a stern yet frightened gaze.

No, the downsized boggart she had placed in a basket with a cushion, blanket, and stuffed raven was most definitely not a cat. “Please, I’ll give you my salary for years to come if you just save him.”

“You’ve brought a tenebra into my office, get—”

“He’s my friend.” Tears had since stopped falling, but they threatened to prick her eyes once again. He was her friend. Sinny was her friend, not . . . whatever the doctor had called him. “His name is Sinistro, he’s been with me forever, please,” he lip quivered, “don’t let him die like this.”

The doctor glanced from her to Sinny, then back to her. When his eyes fell back to Sinny, he took a deep breath and pulled his glasses down over his eyes. “Just a cat,” the doctor muttered before approaching with a new steel gaze.

Sinny’s eyes slid open and he whispered halfheartedly, “I’m cuter.”

The doctor froze, staring wide-eyed at the creature who had just spoken to him. He took another breath, adding, “A smartass cat.” Dexy hovered, falling into the natural role of assistant to the veterinarian as he examined Sinny briefly. Sinny was shaking, keeping as still as possible while the doctor checked his vitals. “Did he—?” the doctor stopped. Closing his eyes, it looked like it took him effort to address Sinny and not Dexy. “Did you eat something you shouldn’t have?”

“A-always?” Sinny answered noncommittally.

“Because this looks like the effects of strychnine.” He looked up and gave Dexy a mournful expression. “I can’t save him.”

Dexy had already been crestfallen. Now she was devastated. Strychnine, a poison that caused its victim to bleed to death from the inside. It had been deemed inhumane for a long time, but it was still used by some. Still sold by people who didn’t acknowledge its cruelty. Still used on pests.

Sinny was going to die like a pest.

“No,” she whimpered, gathering the basket up in her arms as she started to weep against Sinny’s shivering body. His tail slid from under the blanket, weakly brushing over one of her hands as sobs wracked her. She clutched the tail hard in her fist, not even flinching when her employer started to rub her back.

“That he is still alive . . . that you are still alive is incredible.” Strychnine worked almost instantly, it really was a miracle he still lived. “I’m sorry. At this point, all I can do is ease your passing.” If modern medicine even worked on him, she thought bitterly. Clearly poisons did.

“Dexy?” the boggart murmured, lips caked in his own blood. “Dexy, it’s . . . it’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”

What a hell of a note. He was the one dying and she was the one being comforted. This . . . this was a nightmare. She wanted it to be just a nightmare. Just a story, pencil on paper . . . .

Her story. Her story, where the friend had grown ill. How was she going to proceed? How would she have proceeded? The last thing she remembered thinking was the surviving companion was going to go find the cure. But she had already done that . . . .

Or had she? Dexy looked up at the doctor. “You s-said . . . tenebra. Where have I heard-d that before?”

He looked at her like she’d grown horns. Like he was flabbergasted she had asked while her best friend was dying in her arms. That was precisely why it was important he answer the question. Which, thankfully, he did. “Terrible monstrosities. Creatures that roam the forest, taking lives and stealing soul—”

“This forest,” she interrupted. “If I left Eventide proper, would I find them?”

“Most assuredly, but Dextra,” he gripped her shoulder tightly, “these are not good creatures. It’s true, there are lumina that wander among us that go unnoticed. You,” his eyes widened again as he fretfully continued, “I might have thought you were a lumina had you not asked.” Dexy started pulling from his grip, pushing the blanket from around Sinny and carefully cradling him (and Thomas) in her arms. “What are you doing?”

“If these tenebra can take life,” she started for the door, “one of them must be able to give it.”

The doctor followed, tone turning frantic. “Be reasonable!”

“I am.”

“Those things will kill you—”

“They might save him.”

“Dexy,” Sinny’s tail coiled around her arm, “you should listen—”

“No,” she said forcefully, stopping and turning toward the doctor. That made him stop dead in his tracks. She glanced down at Sinny, then whispered, “This is how the story ends.” His breathing was shallow as he stared up at her with partially closed eyes. Then he nodded, tucking his head under her chin. He understood. Turning back to the doctor, she said, “I’m sorry. If I don’t come in for my shift tomorrow,” she pursed her lips. She didn’t need to continue. He knew what she meant.

Slamming the door behind them to stall so her boss didn’t try to chase her, she ran for the tree line. Once beyond the line, she slowed and had to navigate more carefully. She held Sinny close as they disappeared into the dark to save him.

To finish the story.

This was how she was to finish the story. She was just being a little more literal than she had anticipated.

That’s what she told herself as her heart picked up speed in desperation.

\--

Dextra threw the notebook on the floor in a rage. Glaring at the stack, she started yanking them up armfuls at a time and tossing them on the floor in a pile as well. Loose pages scattered and flew, covers tore, all while she grumbled, “Waste of fucking time.”

As she dropped the last bit of her stack on the disorganized and messy pile, a set of hands wrapped around her upper arms. “What’s wrong?” Sinistro asked, his long claw brushing her side.

She didn’t answer immediately, instead jerking out of his hold and stalking to her dresser. She started yanking out drawers in her mad search for something. “Didn’t even wait,” she snarled. She had finished crying. She was beyond crying. “Couldn’t even wait till I was gone.” Drawers were ripped out and tossed, their contents scattering like the loose pages. Sinistro leapt onto the bed and out of her way. She was beyond consolation. “He couldn’t even wait to move on.”

“I said I didn’t like—”

“I know what you said!” she shouted, flinging another drawer to punctuate her statement. “I know you were right! I was stupid not to listen!” She found what she was looking for in the second to last drawer: a book of matches. She lowered her voice. “I was stupid to write out the end.” She recalled vividly how the friend in her story had moved on without the other. She had thought that friend would be Sinistro. No. She had been wrong.

It had been her pretty, loving, almost too perfect now ex-boyfriend.

She started pulling a match free and stepped toward the pile of notebooks. Only then did Sinistro fling himself between her and her target. “Dextra—”

“I never should have written it,” she snapped, eyes fixed on the pile.

“—we’ve talked about this. When you write, it is not you making it happen.”

“I should have never written anything.”

“To stop writing would not stop it.”

“I don’t want to see it happen.”

“It would still happen.”

“I don’t want to know.”

“I hate being right!” she screamed as she struck the match.

He grimaced as he wrapped his fist around the flame, crying out as it was snuffed out in his palm. “Dexy please, hear what I’m say—”

“I don’t want to be right anymore!” she bellowed as she reached for another match.

He did something he had never done to her before: he lurched forward and sank his sharp teeth into her hand. She screamed, dropping the matches and jerking away from him. “That’s too damn bad!” he snapped in the vocals of an old man stuck chasing a fortune he’d never find. His voice reverted back to Jude Law’s. “You don’t want to be right anymore?” She held her bleeding hand, staring up at him in disbelief as her anger started to dwindle. “If you aren’t right . . . and I’m not left,” he lowered himself to all fours, positioning his body of the notebooks, “then I am . . . left.”

She stared at the boggart, sitting atop of twelve years of stories. Twelve years of writing. Twelve years of ‘what if’s, ghost stories, nightmares, daydreams. Twelve years of Dextra and Sinistro.

And she had wanted to destroy it. Destroy it over . . . being Dextra.

When she realized her mistake, the mistake she had almost gone through with, that Sinistro had saved her from, she felt herself starting to crumble.

And as always, Sinistro was right there to keep her pieces from scattering. As always, he saved and consoled her. Long tongue lapping at the bite on her hand they rested on their legacy. Torn, disorganized, juvenile and yet mature, it was theirs.

Theirs and no one else’s.

\--

The tenebra who had taken their souls had left him healed and clinging to an unconscious Dexy. “Please,” he muttered over and over, “please wake up.” He was starting to get scared, waiting for the one the strange woman who feared nothing save for what lie in her own head had sent for. His flame tipped tail curled around Dexy’s limp leg and he tried to believe the tenebra’s words. He tried to believe that they were going to live together forever, that so long as his flame was burning so would hers. If Dexy were truly dead, he would not be upright now.

But no matter the number of fairy tales they had read and written, he could not believe this one immediately.

He was whimpering like a pup, holding Dexy tight with his face buried in her hair and begging for her to awaken when he was startled. The soft sound of nearing footsteps made his glowing gaze flit up. They locked onto the blonde giant the tenebra she had described, and he was able to sense the man’s—creature’s?—fears. There were so many . . . how was he standing at all?

The giant gave Sinny no reason to use his newfound knowledge on the other (how was he collecting this so easily, he’d never been able to read a head like this?), but he gave him no reason to approach either. Until a feeling of calm washed over him and suddenly . . . his heart wasn’t beating as rapidly. The giant held out his hand. “I’m here to take you home.”

Sinny narrowed his eyes at the palm then. “Home?”

The giant nodded and the calm intensified. He hadn’t known it was possible for calm to intensify, but it did. And unlike the other tenebra, this one . . . this one did not have hardened features and a furrowed brow. He was as his leader had promised: kind. “Rather . . . somewhere safe. For both of you.” Sinny didn’t shake his hand. Well, not with his palm. He placed his long claw in the blonde’s hand and the other accepted it, shaking it like he’d been offered the hand it was attached to. “Call me Tea.”

“Sinistro.” He eyed the girl he had situated in his arms. “And Dextra.”

He felt a hint of sympathy and realized the reason for why the calm was so strange: it wasn’t really his. It was the other tenebra trying to assuage his fears and concerns. Oddly, that didn’t make him uncomfortable. It didn’t bother him that the other was trying to make him feel better.

He appreciated what seemed to be a genuine effort.

“Ready?” Tea asked.

Sinny hesitated only a second longer, then nodded. Picking up Dexy, he stood and found that he was taller than the giant. Tea blinked, then proceeded to lead them deeper into the forest. He looked back only once, eyeing the burnt path Dexy had taken to get them where they were going.

She had sold their souls to save his life, and all he wanted to ask her now was how the story she had been writing was really supposed to end.

\--

Moving back to the states, Dextra had a lot to be worried about. She had a lot to relearn and the loss of her friends in London to boot.

But Sinistro’s head popped out of the box as she moved into the upstairs room of her parents’ house. The majority of her things would stay in storage. This home was not a permanent one. It was a good place to start though.

Scratching the boggart’s head, she smiled. They may not find what she came to call their forever home for a while, but at the very least they would never be searching for it on their own.


End file.
